


The Boy in the Green Jacket

by Queen_BeeChloe



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Accidental Marriage, F/M, Gabriel is more misunderstood than straight up evil but still sucks as a parent, Humor, Magical Creatures AU, POV Alya Césaire, Romance, Selkies AU, Some Fluff, Some angst, nothing super violent happens but some pretty dark stuff is alliuded to, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-08-20 23:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16564901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_BeeChloe/pseuds/Queen_BeeChloe
Summary: Alya Césaire has two great loves in her life.One is journalism. Alya is going to be a great reporter if it kills her.The other is saving the world. Alya grew up obsessed with superheroes, but those aren't a thing in real life. So Alya is trying to save the world the only way she can: by saving the environment. Recycling, conservation, alternative energy. Alya's big into all of it. Blogging about it, talking about it to anyone who will listen and some people who won't. Because she may still be a teenager, but she's going to help as much as she can.She's especially into saving sea turtles. She's been obsessed with them since she was little.She just never thought that the third love of her life would end up being one.Or that she'd end up marrying him before she knew his name. On accident. Because of a jacket.Or that their marriage would lead her to the best story she's ever found, one that she'll never get to blog about.But one that might just help her save the world.





	1. The Day Alya Césaire's Obsessive Love of Sea Turtles Began

Alya ran out onto the sand, laughing hysterically.

Her parents and Nora trailed behind her, not seeming as excited to be on the beach as Alya was.

Alya couldn't understand that. The sand was so soft and warm, and the sun was so bright, and the ocean was so beautiful. How they could not be as happy as her?

She looked back at her parents. "Mommy, look at the ocean! It's so pretty!"

Her mom smiled. "Yes, it is. But make sure you stay close to us, okay?"

Alya nodded happily. She loved playing with her parents. She didn't want to go far away.

She kept running until she got to the water. Her dad came running up behind her. "Uh-oh, Alya. It looks like there's a sea monster in the waves. We better run away from it!"

Alya giggled and ran away from the waves, her dad running beside her. The wave caught her heels, and she screamed with delight and laughed until she was crying, tears falling down into the water.

She must have played in the beach and the sand for at least an hour before she waded into the ocean, her dad's hand in hers, Nora holding his other hand.

Then the wave hit. It knocked Nora over, pushing her backwards. Alya's dad lunged for her as she went under the water, his hand slipping out of Alya's for just a second.

And in that second, the wave pulled back into the ocean, and it pulled Alya with it.

Alya screamed, and water flooded into her lungs as she was pulled into the water.

She couldn't tell where the water was taking her. She hit the sand at one point. She swam as hard as she could, trying to get to the surface, but the current was too strong. She couldn't swim in it.

In desperation, she opened her eyes, and that was when she saw something impossible.

It was a boy. He looked like he was her age, but he swam through the current faster than her dad could have swam in an empty pool.

He reached out, and as he grabbed her hand, Alya saw his face, tan skin and golden brown eyes full of determination.

He swam upwards, pulling Alya out of the current.

But everything went dark before they made it to the surface.

The next thing Alya knew, she was lying on the sand, a hand pressed gently to her stomach, and somehow that hand made the water in her lungs go away, made it so Alya could breathe. Another hand touched her head gently, brushing her hair out of her face.

Then she heard her mom screaming her name, and the hand on her stomach and the hand on her head disappeared.

Alya opened her eyes just in time to see a boy in green swim trunks running away from her toward the water. He dove into the water and grabbed something green in the water, and then he disappeared.

Alya struggled to sit up, looking for the boy.

Then her mom came running up, throwing her arms around Alya.

"Alya! We were so worried about you! Are you okay?"

Alya pushed away from her, standing up so she could look for the boy who had pulled her out of the water.

But she couldn't see him. The only thing she could see was a sea turtle, swimming away from the beach.

It turned its body and looked back at her, raising one flipper like it was waving at her.

Alya's jaw dropped.

Her mom took Alya's face in her hands and turned Alya's head towards her, her thumbs brushing Alya's cheeks. "Alya? Are you okay?"

Alya blinked as she tried to focus on her mom. "What?"

Her mom frowned, looking concerned. "Alya, you disappeared into the water. How did you get out?"

How did she get out of the water? Alya tried to think, but all she could remember was golden brown eyes, something green, and flippers. "A sea turtle?"

Her mom stared at her. "What?"

Alya frowned. "I saw a sea turtle," she said again. It was all she could remember, but... Hadn't there been something else? Something that pulled her out of the water?

Her mom's brow furrowed in confusion  
She opened her mouth like she was going to say something else, but then they heard Alya's dad and Nora yell Alya's name. "Let's go. We need to tell your dad and Nora that you're alright." She looked at Alya's face and frowned. "You are okay, aren't you?"

Alya nodded, and her mom stood up and took Alya's hand and led her back to her father and Nora.

Her father broke into a run when he saw her, and Alya started running too, straight into his open arms.

"Alya!" She'd never heard her father's voice so full of love and relief before. "I was so scared! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Alya said, burrowing her face into her father's shoulder. "I was so scared, but I'm okay now."

Her father held her tight for a long moment before he looked up at her mother. "Was she in the water when you found her?"

"No, she was on the beach," her mom said.

"How did she get out of the water? Did she swim out somehow?" Her dad asked.

A few seconds passed in silence before her mom answered. "She says she saw a sea turtle. It was the only thing she'd tell me."

Alya closed her eyes tight, trying to remember. "Everything went dark," she said, and her father pulled away from her to look at her face. Alya opened her eyes and looked at him. "I was in the water, and everything went dark."

Her dad stopped breathing. "What?" He sounded like he was choking on that one word.

"It went dark," Alya said again. "And then I was on the beach, and..." She furrowed her brows, trying to think. She hadn't been alone when she woke up on the beach, had she? Hadn't someone been there? She couldn't remember. All she could remember was... "I saw a sea turtle," she told her dad.

Her dad stared at her. "A sea turtle?"

"She must have washed up with the waves," her mom said.

Alya shook her head. "The sea turtle saved me." Someone had pulled her out of the water, she knew that, and all she could remember was a sea turtle, so that must have been what had saved her. It was the only thing that made sense.

"There aren't usually sea turtles around here," her dad said. Then he shook his head. "It's not important. You're safe now. That's all that matters. Let's go home."

He gathered her up in his arms, and carried her across the beach towards the car.

Alya looked up, over her dad's shoulder, towards the ocean, and for just a second, she thought she saw a sea turtle watching them leave.

Then she blinked, and it was gone.


	2. The Day Alya Césaire Met Her (Not So) Future Husband

_Alya swam through the ocean, dozens of sea turtles swimming around her. They pressed in close, brushing against her, trying to herd her in one direction._

_She obliged them, letting them guide her through the water. Her heart started to pound as she swam. Somehow, she knew they were taking her somewhere special, somewhere important._

_And then the nets came out of nowhere, tangling up the sea turtles, dragging them down into the ocean or up into boats that hadn't been there a second ago._

_One of the nets wrapped around Alya, and she screamed as she was dragged up onto the deck of a boat full of men and women covered in tortoiseshell jewelry, jeering and laughing at the turtles they had caught._

_Alya tried to free herself of the net, but the more she pulled on it, the more tangled up she seemed to get._

_She called for help, but the people on the boat didn't seem to hear her or see her, their focus completely on the turtles they had caught._

_Alya looked at the sea turtles all around her. They weren't struggling. They lay still on the boat, like they had already accepted their fate, their heads all turned so they could stare mournfully out at the ocean._

_All except one. While the others looked at the ocean, this one looked at her, it's flippers moving feebly in the net, like it was still trying to free itself._

_Alya met it's beautiful golden-brown eyes and something inside her snapped._

_She wriggled in the net, crawling across the deck. Every move made the nets tighter, but Alya kept struggling until she reached the turtle._

_She stretched one arm out as far as she could, wrapped her fingers around the cords binding the turtle._

_But as she grabbed the cords, her fingers brushed against the turtle's skin, and the sea turtle flattened like a deflating balloon, until nothing but it's skin remained._

_Alya screamed in horror and threw herself back as much as she could, away from the turtle's skin._

And she fell out of bed and hit the ground hard. It took her a second to process where she was, and then she pushed herself up.

Or tried to, anyway. Her blanket had gotten so tangled around here she couldn't move very much at all.

It took her a moment to untangle herself from the blanket. Once she was free, she sat on the floor for a few seconds, forcing herself to take deep breaths. The dream had felt so real. Too real. The memory of the turtle skin wouldn't leave her mind. It was like she could still feel it against her fingertips, and that made her skin crawl.

But after a moment of sitting on the floor, Alya got to her feet and moved over to her computer. She turned it on and opened her blog.

Her last post had only been a couple of days ago. Normally, she only tried to post once a week, but after that dream, she had to post again.

Her fingers flew over the keys. She switched quickly between tabs, researching and writing blending together in a chaotic symphony. Most people probably would have lost track with so many tabs, but Alya had gotten good at writing factually accurate blog posts very fast.

Of course, Alya didn't just rely on facts to get people to read her blog. All the information about pollution, deforestation, commercial fishing, and other commercial activities that negatively affected animal populations wouldn't help her save the world unless her blog was interesting enough to get people to read it, talk about it, and do something about it.

She was doing pretty good on the readership so far, but she needed to get more people actually doing stuff if she wanted to really make a difference.

The sea turtles were dying.

Not every kind of sea turtle was endangered. But the hawksbill sea turtle wasn't going to be around too much longer if people kept hunting it to make tortoiseshell stuff.

Alya had never really understood how some people could put money before a whole species of animals. She certainly couldn't understand how people could put cute clothes and accessories before a whole species.

She was almost done writing the post when her dad's voice snapped her out of her work.

"Alya! Come to the kitchen! It's time for breakfast!"

Judging by the annoyance in his voice, this was not the first time he'd called her to come out.

But while he might have been a little annoyed, Alya was much more annoyed. She hated being snapped out of her thoughts.

"I can't come right now!" Alya yelled back. "The sea turtles are dying!"

There was a brief pause before her dad started yelling again. "I'm really sorry about the sea turtles, Alya, but you'll have to postpone saving them until tonight or you'll be late for school!"

Alya sighed heavily. She saved her writing and then turned the computer off.

Then she stood up and got dressed, moving fast so she wouldn't be late to school.

After all, one did not become a great journalist by getting bad grades. Alya was never late, never missed an assignment, because one day, she wanted to be the perfect candidate for any journalism job there was.

She headed out into the kitchen, where her dad was making breakfast.

He handed her a glass of orange juice and a plate. "You're going to have to eat fast so you won't be late."

Alya smiled at him. "Don't worry. I won't be late." She leaned in and gave her dad a peck on the cheek. "Thanks for making breakfast, Dad."

Her dad smiled slightly. "Well, I'm not a chef like your mother, but I do have my share of experience with meat."

Alya flashed him a grin as she set her plate and cup down on the table. "I don't know if feeding raw meat to zoo animals counts as experience for feeding people."

Her dad pouted at her. "What? Of course it does. People are animals too."

"Technically," Alya agreed. "But last time I checked, I couldn't eat raw meat like a panther." She bolted down breakfast and then stood up to clear her plate. "But I will admit, that was good. Guess you can feed people too."

Her dad smiled affectionately and rolled his eyes. "Just get to school, Alya."

Alya grabbed her backpack and ran out the door.

Despite all the concern that she was going to be late, she got to school with several minutes to spare.

And that gave her the luxury to laugh her head off as her best friend Marinette, who really was running late, came careening up the stairs way too fast and slammed into someone. She would have fallen right back down the steps if that someone hadn't reacted with lightning fast reflexes, shooting out a hand and wrapping it around her wrist before she could fall more than a foot away.

Marinette yelped loudly as her fall was suddenly broken. Then she saw who it was and instantly went bright red. "A... Adrien. Yank tho! I mean, thank you. I mean, are you okay? I mean, I'm sorry that I jumped into you. I mean, bumped into you. Oh, I'm so clumsy."

Alya bit her lip to keep herself from cracking up. She couldn't believe how self-conscious Marinette got around Adrien. She tended to be so confident when he wasn't around.

Adrien just smiled and pulled Marinette toward him so she could regain her balance. "I'm fine. Are you okay?"

Marinette nodded quickly, apparently having given up on trying to form words.

Adrien let go of her and headed inside and Marinette ran straight to Alya.

"You okay, girl?" Alya asked her, still trying not to laugh.

"I'm fine," Marinette said with a cheerful smile. But it didn't touch her eyes. They had an expression in them Alya was pretty sure she'd never seen on Marinette before.

Maybe her almost falling down the stairs wasn't just one of her usual moments of clumsiness.

Alya frowned at her. "Okay, Marinette. What's up?"

Marinette shook her head. "It's nothing."

Alya just raised her eyebrows at her.

Marinette's smile grew. "Really. I'm fine. Hey, there's a new cafe pretty close to my house. Do you want to go check it out after school?"

Alya thought about calling Marinette out on the sudden topic change, but decided to let it go. "Sure. Let's go check it out after school. And then we can talk about how you 'accidentally' bumped into Adrien."

Marinette's face flushed again. "What? But it was an accident!"

Alya couldn't help but laugh at the look on Marinette's face. "I'm just teasing, Marinette. I believe you. I know how clumsy you are."

Marinette shook her head as they walked into the school building. "Come on. There must be something you'd rather talk about today, other than how clumsy I am."

 

  
"Ooh, look at this one!"

Marinette didn't look as excited about the pictures as Alya was, but she leaned in and looked anyway, frowning at what she saw. "Is that sea turtle glowing?"

Alya wrinkled her nose. "Kind of, I guess. I mean, it's not bioluminescent or anything, but it looks like it's biofluorescent.." She glanced up at Marinette's face and her voice trailed off. "Uh, yeah. It's glowing."

Marinette squinted at the picture. "But it's a sea turtle? How is that possible?"

Alya shrugged. "It's a hawksbill sea turtle. Apparently, it's something they do. They're also the turtles that tortoiseshell stuff is normally made out of, so they're super endangered."

Marinette shook her head. "That's so sad. Why would people...?"

She stopped speaking suddenly, her eyes widening as all the blood drained out of her face.

Alya waved a hand in front of Marinette's face. She didn't seem to notice. "Marinette? Are you okay?"

Marinette blinked, snapping out of her reverie. Her eyes met Alya's for one second, and then she was pushing herself up out of her chair. "Sorry. I forgot I had something I was supposed to to do, but I'll be right back!"

And then she sprinted out the door.

Alya stared after her for a moment, and then her eyes fell on a boy sitting just a couple of tables over from her.

He was tall. Well, it was hard to be sure when he was sitting down, but he looked tall. Tall, and cute, in a goofy kind of way. He was wearing a green jacket, even though it was too hot for a jacket, and headphones, bobbing his head in time to the music.

But none of that was what caught Alya's gaze. It was his glasses. His pretty distinctively tortoiseshell glasses.

Calm down, Alya, Alya told herself. It's probably not real tortoiseshell.

But that didn't really matter. As long as a tortoiseshell design was popular, there would always be people who wanted the real thing, and that meant there would always be turtles dying so some jerk could have nice jewelry.

She probably would have let it go, normally. But after that dream last night, she was fired up. So she pushed herself up out of her seat, stomped over to his table, and took a seat across the table from the boy.

He glanced up when she came over, his expression growing startled when she sat down at his table. "Um... Can I help you?" He asked, pulling the headphones off his ears.

Alya scowled at him. "Tortoiseshell glasses? Really?"

The boy blinked several times, like he wasn't quite sure why she was talking to him about his glasses. "What?"

Alya tapped her own glasses. "Tortoiseshell. Did you know that tortoiseshell is normally made out of a rare kind of sea turtle called a hawksbill, which has been hunted and hurt by humans so much that it's nearing extinction?"

Alya waited for the boy to freak out, to say that it was horrible that people would do such a thing and to apologize for having the audacity to wear such a design.

Instead the boy just frowned like he didn't know why it was a big deal. "Yeah, I'm aware."

Alya's blood grew dangerously close to boiling. She leaned forward, moving closer to the boy's face so that she could glare right into his eyes. "If you knew about that, why would you wear them?"

The boy looked away, his expression a little nervous. "Uh... Because I... Because I... Because I liked them?" He frowned, his next comment under his breath, like he was talking to himself. "That's why people pick glasses, right?"

Alya growled and rose half out of her seat, reaching forward to grab the front of his jacket and pull him towards her. His eyes widened in surprise and fear, which was gratifying, but not enough to get rid of her anger. "You're wearing tortoiseshell glasses because you thought they looked cool?" She snarled at him.

"Uh... Was that not the right answer?" The boy asked, not making any move to pull away from her.

People were starting to look over at them. Alya didn't care. She growled at him. "Not the right..." She started to say, her hands tightening on the jacket. "What is this? Is this leather? So you're just into wearing all kinds of dead animals, are you? Sea turtles aren't enough for you?"

The boy frowned again. "Well, technically, the jacket is sea turtle too..."

Everything inside Alya snapped at the exact same moment. She shoved the boy roughly back into his seat and stood up to bang her hands on the table. "Sea turtle? Are you kidding me? You're wearing a jacket that was made out of sea turtles?"

She hadn't really meant to yell, but she was too mad to keep her voice down, and now the room was silent, absolutely everyone in the cafe staring at the two of them.

The boy glanced around, not seeming comfortable with the attention. "Uh... Technically this is just one sea turtle..."

"I don't care!" Alya yelled, and the boy's eyes snapped back to her, his body going rigid with fear. Good. He should be scared. He should be terrified. "How dare you wear a jacket made out of sea turtles! They're endangered! That is so... So... Aagh!" She couldn't think of a word bad enough, so she settled for just screaming at him instead.

The boy shook his head hard. "No. I told you. This is just from one..."

Alya let out a yell of rage. What kind of defense was that? How could this jerk possibly think it just being one sea turtle justified him?

Images flooded her brain. A sea turtle, waving goodbye as it swam away from her. Sea turtles drowning in nets, being dragged onto a boat, one sea turtle staring at her as it's body dissolved so that only it's skin remained, skin that looked a lot like his jacket.

Alya was moving before she knew it, lunging around the table to grab the boy by his jacket and haul him up to his feet. "Take this jacket off, right now!"

The boy's eyes went round as saucers. "What?"

"Give. Me. The. Jacket." Alya said through gritted teeth, yanking angrily on the jacket.

The boy shook his head so hard his glasses nearly fell off. "No! No no no. I can't give you the jacket. Absolutely not. No way."

And just like that, Alya's blood hit the boiling stage. "Fine! Then I'll just take it off you!"

She started yanking on the jacket, and the boy started shrieking. "No! No! Don't take my jacket! You don't understand, you really can't take my jacket! No! No no no! This is bad. This is really really bad. My mom's going to kill me! Stop it!"

He started trying to run away from her, which wasn't very effective with both of her hands grabbing his jacket. She pulled him back toward her, he pulled harder away, and the next thing she knew, she was stumbling backwards with his jacket in her hands and he was falling forward onto the floor.

He yelped loudly and hit the ground hard. Then he pushed himself over, onto his butt, and looked up at her standing over him with his jacket in her hands.

He sighed heavily, the panic gone from his face, replaced by a heavy kind of resignation. "Oh, man. That is not how I thought I was going to get married."


	3. The Day Alya Césaire Got Her First Stalker

Alya almost dropped the green jacket. "Wait, what did you just say?"

The boy rubbed his head violently and started muttering to himself. "Oh dude, my mom is going to kill me. That was like, the one thing she said. 'Whatever you do, don't lose your jacket on the first day.' She was kidding, of course, because who could do something so stupid so fast. Me! That's who. Lose my jacket to some random girl whose name I don't even know! Dang it, dang it, dang it. What am I supposed to do now?"

Alya wanted to be mad at him. She really did. The guy had been wearing a sea turtle jacket, which offended her on pretty much every level.

But at the moment, Alya was too confused to feel anything else. "What are you talking about?"

The guy sighed. "Nothing important." Then he sighed again. "Well, actually no, it's very important, and I should probably tell you about it." He rubbed his head again and let out an exasperated groan. "I should definitely tell you. But you're probably not going to believe me, and this is going to be a really long conversation, and we should start it at the beginning. But what would the beginning even be?"

Alya just stared at the boy wordlessly as he rattled on.

The boy looked up at her and took a deep breath. "Okay. Well, let's start with this." He smiled gently at her. "Hi. I'm Nino. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Alya blinked. She looked down at the jacket in her hands, the jacket that she had just taken forcefully off of him, and then she looked back at Nino, still sitting on the ground. His lips were smiling, but his eyes and body language were both just so... Defeated. Like she'd just taken something much more important than a jacket from him. Honestly, he looked like a kicked puppy, and sea turtle jacket or no, Alya felt like a jerk.

"Uh... I'm... Sorry. Here." Alya held the jacket out toward him. "I shouldn't have taken this from you. I mean, I hate that you have it. Sea turtles... They need to be protected. But me taking this jacket won't bring the sea turtles back to life, and kind of just makes me a thief, and it's obviously important to you for some reason, so..." She shook the jacket a little to get him to look at it, and not just keep staring at her with those sad eyes. "Take it."

Nino frowned. "You took my jacket because you want to save the sea turtles?"

Alya nodded.

He looked away from her, his eyes unfocusing like he was lost in thought. "Of all the reasons to lose it..." He looked back up at her. "Believe it or not, I want to save the sea turtles too." His lips quirked slightly, like he'd just told a joke. "I mean, I _really_ want to save the sea turtles."

Alya blinked again. "What?"

Nino glanced around at all the people staring at them. "Uh... Is there anyway we could go somewhere... Else and talk?"

Alya glanced around. They were getting a lot of attention. "Yeah, okay. Do you want your jacket back first?"

Nino shook his head. "That's... That's not how it works."

Alya wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but there really were a ton of people staring at them. So she let the hand holding the jacket fall down to her side and held her other hand toward him. "Well, would you like a hand up?"

Nino looked startled for a second, scanning her face like he thought it might be some kind of trick. Then he smiled and took her hand.

The second he touched her hand, Alya's skin tingled. Electricity raced up her arm as her breath caught in her throat. She didn't feel like she'd just taken someone's hand. She felt like she'd been missing half of herself her whole life and she'd suddenly found it.

Nino's eyes widened as he looked up at her face.

Alya didn't even want to think about what expression she was making. So she forced a smile and pulled him to his feet. "So, where did you want to go?"

Nino glanced down, and Alya realized that she was still holding his hand. She let go of it quickly.

Nino didn't comment on it, for which Alya was unreasonably grateful. "Um... I'm new, to Paris. I don't know where anything is yet."

It took Alya a minute to realize what he was saying. "Oh. So I guess it's up to me to figure out where we're going, then."

Nino nodded quickly, glancing at the people still watching them. There were less now, but clearly still more than Nino was comfortable with. "Yeah, if you could that would be great, dude."

Alya raised her eyebrows at him. "Dude?"

He smiled apologetically. "I... don't know your name."

She'd forgotten about that. He'd introduced himself, but Alya hadn't reciprocated. "Oh, yeah. My name is..."

The words died in her throat as the entire room was suddenly swallowed in thick fog.

Nino went as rigid as stone, his eyes scanning the room quickly. "Uh-oh."

Alya glanced around. "What the... Where did this fog come from?" Then she noticed something else, something even stranger. "Where did everybody go?"

Because while there were still tables and chairs, still cups of coffee scattered around the room, but the people had just... vanished.

"Hey." Nino's voice was full of urgency. She met his eyes, and while his expression was full of fear, he didn't seem confused or surprised by the fog or the sudden lack of people. "Whatever you do, don't let go of the jacket."

Alya stared at him. "What?"

She had a dozen other questions she would have liked to ask. Did he know where the people had gone? Did he know where the fog had come from? Why wasn't he freaking out? But she couldn't make any of those words come out of her mouth.

She didn't get much of a chance to, anyway. Only seconds after Nino had told her to keep hold of his jacket, she heard the door to the cafe open.

Alya turned her head to look. A man had just stepped into the room. He was tall and muscular, wearing black clothes, with a mask over the lower half of his face, a mask that looked disturbingly like the mandibles of an ant or some other kind of bug.

The man reached up, his hand moving to his shoulder, like he was about to grab something behind his back.

Nino's hand wrapped around Alya's, and then suddenly he was moving, running toward the back exit, pulling Alya with him.

Alya twisted around to look at the man as Nino pulled her toward the door.

He was pulling what could only be a bow out from behind his shoulder. There was no arrow in his hand, but he drew the bow back anyway.

He released the string, and a glowing purple arrow flew through the air, burrowing into the wall just a couple of inches behind Alya, right before Nino pulled her out the door.

"What?" Alya's voice came out as loud as she had intended, but at a much higher pitch. "Did he just shoot an arrow at us?"

Nino didn't look back at her, yelling an answer as he pulled her down the street, eyes wide with panic but facing straight ahead. "If he catches us, he's going to do a lot worse than that!"

"What?" The word sounded almost offended as it spilled out of Alya's lips. "Why? Why is he shooting at us?"

She looked back, and saw the man stepping out of the cafe. He met Alya's gaze, his eyes glittering with amusement.

He pulled back the string again, no arrow in his hand, and then released it.

The arrow flew toward her, and Alya had just enough time to realize that the arrow was going to hit her. She didn't have time to move.

She was going to die.

And then the hand pulling hers stopped pulling her forward, pulling her sideways instead.

Not far enough for the arrow to miss her completely, but it didn't matter.

It didn't matter, because Nino was suddenly somehow in front of her, in between her and the arrow.

Alya opened her mouth to cry out, but the arrow hit Nino before she could.

More specifically, it hit Nino's arm.

Well, not hit so much as richoted off of _._

The arrow's glow grew much brighter when it hit Nino's arm, but then Nino moved his arm slightly, and the arrow shot sideways, shattering the window of the building beside them.

Alya looked at the shattered window, and then turned to look at Nino's arm.

It was still raised in front of him, so Alya could see that it was no longer just a normal arm. It was green, and looked more like the jacket in her hand than it looked like Nino's other arm, the one that still held her other hand.

Thousands of questions burned in Alya's mind, questions Alya didn't have the words to express.

Nino looked over at her. "Put the jacket on."

Alya stared at him. "What? Why?"

He turned toward her, his gaze unexpectedly serious. "Listen to me. No sea turtles died to make that jacket, but if you don't put it on, you will die for sure. Put. On. The jacket."

Alya swallowed hard, but it was impossible to doubt those eyes. She pulled the jacket on.

As soon as she did, the world around her disappeared. Suddenly, she was in the ocean, and unless she was mistaken, she was a sea turtle.

"Oh, my."

The words cut through the illusion and Alya found herself standing on the street again, human again. She turned her head to look at the man who had almost shot her with the arrow.

He wasn't aiming the bow at them anymore. Instead he held it loosely in his hand, his arm dangling at his side, his body language far too casual for the situation. "You know, I knew the second I saw you that you were something special, but that? Blocking an imp's dark pain spell when you don't even have all your magic? That's something else. Now I don't know if I should sell you to some lonely, wealthy buyer or if I should just take your skin for myself."

She couldn't see his lips, but the tone of his voice made her think he was smiling.

Which just made the words coming out of his mouth that much creepier.

All of Alya's questions were shoved aside, replaced by a single one that came tumbling out of her mouth before she had a chance to think about it. "You want to... skin him? That's... disgusting. You're a monster."

"No, he's not."

Nino's voice was devoid of the fear Alya expected to hear, but full of something else.

She didn't know what until she looked at his face, set in stone, his eyes shining with a calm rage that terrified her to her core.

Hate.

His voice, his eyes, his face, every line of his body, was full of hatred.

It didn't fit him. From the second Alya had met him, even while she was yelling at him, she had seen how Nino was full of lightness and calm, a boy of sun and sky and sea and sand, but now the hatred settled over his features like a dark storm, like a hurricane, heading for land, about to rip apart anything any human had ever dared to build there.

If Alya had been the one he was looking at like that, she would have turned and run the other way.

Nino kept talking, his voice low and surprisingly rough, worlds apart from how he's sounded when he'd shrieked at her not to take his jacket off. "He's not a monster. He's something so much worse than a monster. He's a Stalker."

Alya frowned. "Stalker? Like someone who follows people around and acts all creepy?"

The man laughed. "She doesn't know what a Stalker is? You really should have told her about us before you gave her your jacket. You must know that makes you useless to me as long as she's alive."

Alya looked at the man and then at Nino. "He's going to kill me?"

Nino's jaw locked. "He's going to try."

"Because of a jacket?" Alya asked. She looked back at the man. "You can't kill people because of a jacket, you lunatic."

The man went very still. His eyes finally left Nino, going to her instead. "Oh, my. You don't even know what he is, do you?" He looked back at Nino and clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "You really should have told her that. Were you scared she wouldn't want to be with you if she knew you weren't human?"

Alya's blood ran cold. She wanted to speak out, to tell him that was impossible, that Nino was clearly human.

But humans' arms didn't turn green and deflect arrows.

And arrows didn't glow purple and appear out of nowhere.

She looked at Nino. "What... What is he...?"

Nino glanced over at Alya, saw the confusion and shock and terror she was sure was written all over her face. He spoke, the hatred drained out of his voice, replaced by an impossible gentleness. "I know this is probably going to be pretty hard to swallow, but it's true. Magical creatures are... Real. And Stalkers, like him, hunt us down. To sell us, or use us. Sometimes alive, sometimes... sometimes in pieces."

Alya stared at him for a long moment. "You're a magical creature?"

"Yes." The answer to her question came not from Nino, but from the man with the bug mask. "Quite a valuable one, too." He reached into his pocket. "But he's not very valuable at all while you're alive, so..."

He pulled his hand out of his pocket and flicked his wrist, and something glowing with golden light barreled toward her.

Nino let go of Alya's hand and shoved her out of the way.

Then he raised both of his hands in front of his face, all of his skin turning as green as his one arm had been.

The golden light crashed into him and exploded in a blaze of gold flames, too bright for Alya's eyes.

She screamed and turned her head, burying her face in her arms and closing her eyes tight. Pieces of... something hailed down on her, but though she could feel it, it didn't hurt.

When the light finally died down, she raised her head again, turning to look across the rippes apart street at Nino.

He lay limp on the ground, his eyes closed like he was unconscious. His skin was back to normal, which just made it easier to see the burns on his arms and the charred holes in his shirt.

Alya gasped in horror and crawled over to Nino. She put her hand on his chest and shook him gently. "Nino. Nino, wake up."

Nino didn't move.

The man laughed again. "Looks like his invincibility doesn't work against bottled dragon fire, though. At least not while it's split in half like that."

Alya glared at him, anger making her shake. "You think it's funny that you hurt him?"

The man shrugged. "I didn't hurt him. You did."

"What did you just say?" Alya's voice was closer to a growl than anything else.

"He could have stepped aside. But dragon flame always hits its target, unless it hits someone else first. He would have been fine if he would have just let you take the hit. So you see, it's your fault."

Alya did her level best to kill him with her eyes. "I'm not the one that threw the crazy fire bomb. You are. You meant to set someone on fire, so guess what? You're responsible for the fact that someone caught fire!"

The man rolled his eyes. "Don't be so naive." He took a lazy step toward her.

Alya shifted, leaning over so her body was blocking Nino's chest and head. "You stay away from him."

The man cocked his head. "You'd protect him? Why? He's not even your species. He's just an animal in human shape. And I'm a hunter. This is just my job. There's no reason to get in my way."

Alya scowled. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Obviously, as humans we should defend all species, not just our own. We do enough killing them. It's only fair. And secondly, any idiot could look at him and see what you're too blind to see. He's a person. Even if he isn't human. So if you kill him, you're not just some hunter. You're a murderer."

The man rolled his eyes. "Worry about yourself. I need him alive. You, however..." He drew his bow. "I guess I should be grateful that I don't have to use something as rare as dragon flame to kill you, not when you don't know what you're doing."

He released the string.

An arrow flew at Alya.

She closed her eyes.

And when too long a moment had passed and the arrow didn't hit her, she opened them again.

And the first thing she saw was the point of the arrow, right in front of her face but not moving.

Not moving, because of the hand wrapped around the shaft.

A girl stood in front of Alya, dresseed entirely in red and covered from head to toe, gloves on her hands and the hood on her jacket pulled up so Alya couldn't see her face, except for her lips and chin.

Purple light started to bleed from the arrow up the girl's arm, but the girl simply clenched her fist and the arrow broke. She opened her hand, and the pieces fell to the ground.

"What the... Who are you?" Alya asked.

The girl turned her head slightly away from the man, towards Alya, and spoke her voice quiet but steadier than any rock. "Ladybug. My name is Ladybug."

She looked at the man in front of them, who stared at her with wide eyes, and when she spoke again, her voice was much louder, so that he could hear her too, her lips curving up in a smile.

"Sorry I'm late."


	4. The Day Alya Césaire Met Ladybug

For a long moment, both Alya and the man with the bug mask stayed rock still, staring at Ladybug, too stunned to speak.

Finally, the man broke the silence. "That was a pain spell. You should have been in too much pain to move. How did you break it?"

"An imp's pain spell needs a solid object to anchor itself to, and it needs to make contact with exposed skin." She held up her fully covered arm. "If you break the object before the spell can find bare skin..." She waved a hand at the broken pieces, which were no longer glowing purple. "The spell dies."

The man stared at her in silence.

Ladybug shook her head disapprovingly. "If you're going to use a magical weapon, you should at least figure out how the magic works."

The man made a snarling sound. "I know plenty about how it works!"

He raised the bow and fired it again, and this time, three arrows flew from it instead of one.

Ladybug grabbed something from her belt, something small and round, attached to a glowing red thread. She threw the object and spun the thread in quick circles, creating something almost like a shield in front of her. The arrows flew into it, and the thread cut them into tiny pieces that fell to the ground.

Then she flicked her wrist, and the small object flew back into her hand, just in time for her to throw it again, straight at the man, or more specifically, his bow.

The glowing thread wrapped around the bow, and Ladybug yanked on the thread. The bow was ripped out of the man's hands, and came flying through the air into Ladybug's.

Ladybug caught the bow, raised her knee, and broke the bow over it.

A small creature flew out of the bow, something like a miniature human, but with the wings of a bat.

Ladybug dropped the bow pieces and threw that small object again. This time, Alya could see that it was a yo-yo, red with black polkadots.

The yo-yo shot toward the creature, and the one side of it opened like a ladybug's wings, revealing a glowing white inside. The white sucked the imp in, and the wings snapped shut again.

Ladybug caught the yo-yo and put it back on her belt.

"Hey!" The man protested. "That's my imp!"

"Not anymore," Ladybug replied.

"I see," the man said coldly. "You're a poacher. You follow other Stalkers and when they got close to catching a creature, you swoop in and you steal their prey."

Ladybug tilted her head. "Following. Stealing. Yeah, that sounds like me."

"That's low." The man reached back behind him again. "You're going to pay for getting in the way of my hunt and trying to steal my prey."

He pulled his hand back out and this time he was holding chains. He threw them and they lengthened and wove through the air like snakes.

Ladybug started spinning her yo-yo again, knocking the chains away.

But the more she hit the chains away, the faster the chains moved, until finally one slammed into her, wrapping around her waist. The man yanked his hand, and Ladybug went flying through the air, sailing over the building next to them and disappearing out of sight.

The man yanked his hands back, and the chains flew toward him and disappeared into nothingness.

He turned his gaze back toward Alya. "Enough distractions. It's time you died."

He pulled something different out of his pocket. It was small and silver, and just looking at it made Alya feel strangely dizzy. Images flashed in front of her eyes, memories of her life.

He glanced at her face and his eyes glittered. "I never imagined I'd have to use this on a human, but I suppose I am curious to see what it does to you."

Alya glanced over where Ladybug had disappeared, but she couldn't see anything.

Then she looked at Nino, who still lay unconscious on the ground.

"He can't help you," the man said. "If half his power wasn't enough to stop the dragon flames, then the half you have isn't going to be able to stop a banshee's scream."

He opened his hand, and the small silver thing floated into the air. It pulsed, the air rippling away from it.

And with that ripple came the screaming.

There weren't words to describe it. It made Alya's insides want to come out, made her feel like her skin was being ripped apart as her soul was torn from her body.

It was the sound of death, of dying, of pain.

And then something washed over her, something cool and smooth, and the screaming stopped.

Alya opened her eyes. She hadn't even realized she'd closed them.

She was glowing, green light radiating off the jacket, enveloping her, pushing the ripple away from her.

The man's eyes went as wide as they had when Ladybug had shown up. He closed his hand, and the silver thing and the ripples in the air disappeared. As soon as they did, the glow around Alya faded away.

She heard a groan beside her and turned her head to see Nino struggling to sit up. "I think you misunderstood something."

The man's eyes flicked to him.

Nino's face was tight with pain. He cringed as he sat up. But his voice was steady. "I would never sacrifice half of my magic. If I was going to lose part of my power to someone else and put them in danger as a result, I was going to give them a lot more than half." He looked up at the man, and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a pained smile. "Good luck finding something that can kill her while she's got my jacket."

The man shook his head. "She doesn't know what she's doing. She won't last long without you." He flicked his wrist, and suddenly there was a knife in his hand.

Alya looked at Nino. "Can't you stop him? Fight him or something?"

Nino shook his head. "Magical creatures made a promise a long time ago, and it still binds us. We can't use our magic on humans."

"Even if they try to kill you?" Alya asked.

Nino's face was grim. "Even then."

The man walked toward them, spinning the knife in his hand.

Nino put one hand on Alya's shoulder and pushed gently. "You should get out of here."

"What? I'm not leaving you."

Nino met her eyes, his expression full of a heavy resignation. "If he gets all of my magic, there won't be a magical creature he won't be able to kill. You've got to take the jacket and go."

"But..." Alya started to say.

She was cut off by the sound of the man yelping loudly.

Alya and Nino both turned their heads, just in time to see the man flying down the street, smashing hard into a building at the end of it.

Ladybug stood in between the man and them, panting hard, one leg up in the air and her whole body leaning forward like she'd just thrown something heavy.

Then she put her foot back down on the ground and flicked her wrist, and the yo-yo came flying back to her.

She was turned around so all Alya could see was her back, but Alya could still tell she was angry.

She could see it in how tense Ladybug was, and in how the second Ladybug got her yo-yo back, she started spinning it again, like she was preparing to throw the man into another building if he dared to get back up.

He dared to get back up.

Ladybug threw her yo-yo at him again, but this time the man was ready for it. He dodged quickly sideways so the yo-yo missed him and started sprinting toward Ladybug. As he ran, he reached behind him again, retrieving the chains, and hurling them at Ladybug.

Ladybug dodged the chains and pulled her yo-yo back to her. One of the chains flew toward her, and Ladybug spun her yo-yo again, using it to block the chain.

When the chain hit the yo-yo, it sent off sparks and made a loud screeching sound.

Instantly, Ladybug stopped moving, and the chains wrapped around her again.

"I've got you now," the man said triumphantly. "These chains are unbreakable."

Ladybug smiled, and that smile was the single most mischevious thing Alya had ever seen in her entire life. Like it was the smile of some trickster goddess. "Is that so?"

Then Ladybug started to glow, pink, sparkling light surrounding her. Alya closed her eyes as the light grew too bright.

When she opened them again, Ladybug was gone, and someone else was there.

No.

Not someone else.

It was Ladybug. She just looked... different.

She was no longer covered head to toe. In fact, she wasn't even wearing shoes. Or her hood. Or her jacket. Or her pants. She did have gloves on still, but they only went to her wrists, leaving her arms exposed.

She was wearing a dress. Part of it was transparent, part of it solid. The solid part was red with black polkadots, with a skirt with so many layers it resembled a rose. It stopped at her knees, but the pink, transparent part part of the dress extended to the floor. The sleeves were transparent as well, pink and puffy and strangely enough, airy looking.  The whole dress looked like that, like it had been spun out of thin air. It almost seemed to be floating in the air around her.

Her clothing wasn't the only thing about her that was different about her. Because there was no way she had been hiding that hair beneath that hood. It was red, and tied in pigtails, and both the ribbons that tied it and the hair itself reached almost to the ground.

But the thing that struck Alya the most was her eyes. They were pink, and unless Alya had completely lost her mind (which didn't seem too unlikely, all things considered), they were glowing. Not just glowing. Sparkling. Like they were made of a glitter. Glowing glitter. The skin around her eyes was painted red, almost like a mask. It, too, glittered.

The man's face morphed into scowl. "You're not a Stalker. You're a Trapper."

Ladybug smirked, and suddenly the most mischevious thing Alya had ever seen was one-upped by a smirk. "Took you long enough to figure that out."

The man glared at her. "It doesn't matter. I still have you in chains."

Ladybug glanced down at the chains wrapping around her. "Oh, right. I forgot about those."

She didn't move. At least not much. Honestly, it looked like she just flexed, but then suddenly the chain was shattering, pieces of it flying everywhere.

The man's eyes went wide, but Ladybug didn't give him a chance to do anything else. She flicked her wrist, and her yo-yo flew toward him, wrapping around his feet, tying them together. "Now this is actually unbreakable."

She gave one sharp tug on the yo-yo, and the man yelped and fell over. "Now, answer one question for me. Who are you working for?"

A strange look crossed the man's face. "I'm a Stalker. I don't work for anybody but myself."

Ladybug frowned. "Are you sure? Because if you know anything about Papillion, you could strike up a deal. Trade information for less time locked up."

The man nodded thoughtfully. "I like the idea of less time locked up. But no time locked up sounds better."

He grabbed something out of his pocket, something glowing and round and blue.

Honestly, Alya was getting sick of glowing things. Everything glowed. The arrows the man had shot at them. The dragon flame bomb he'd used to knock out Nino. Nino's jacket. The inside of Ladybug's yo-yo. Ladybug herself.

And now this.

Ladybug yelled in defiance when she saw the glowing blue thing and yanked hard on her yo-yo, but there was yet another flash of light, and the man was gone.

Ladybug's yo-yo snapped back to her hand and she cursed loudly. "I should have known. He had too many weapons. Of course he had a dimensional object on him. I should have realized he could teleport." She looked sideways, frowning, and started muttering to herself, loudly enough Alya and Nino could hear her. "I wonder how he got it. And what was it? It certainly wasn't unicorn magic, but there aren't a lot of other creatures whose magic could safely teleport a human. A genie, maybe, but..."

"Uh, have you ever met a genie?"

Ladybug's head snapped toward Alya and Nino. She looked startled, like she'd forgotten they were there. Her eyes met Nino's, her head tilting. "No, I haven't."

Nino smiled. "Well, dude, as someone who has, I can tell you that definitely wasn't genie magic. If it was, he would have disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Not a flash of light. That was... Actually, I don't know what it was, but there's no way it was from a genie."

Ladybug frowned. "Are you sure?"

Nino nodded.

Ladybug sighed. Then she started walking toward them.

Alya leaned over to try and put her body in front of Nino's, at least a little. "Okay, you're going to stay away from him until you tell me what you want. Do you want to skin him? Because the last guy wanted to skin him!"

Ladybug stopped walking, her eyes widening. "Skin him? Why?" She looked at Nino. "What are you?"

Nino didn't answer Ladybug. He didn't even seem to hear her. He was too busy looking at Alya. "He didn't want to skin me."

Alya twisted around to look at Nino. "He said he didn't know if he should sell you, which is creepy, or if he should take your skin, which is worse. Those are the words he used Nino. Take. Your. Skin."

Nino frowned. "Well, yeah. But when he said skin, he meant the jacket."

Ladybug gasped loudly. Alya glanced back at her. Her eyes were wide with surprise. They flicked from Nino to the jacket Alya was wearing, and some emotion other than surprise flickered on her face. Something... Something that looked like horror.

Alya glanced down at jacket. Then she looked at Nino. "The jacket... is your skin? I thought you said it was made out of sea turtles."

Nino shook his head. "I said it was made from one sea turtle."

"What's the diff..?" Alya started to ask.

And then the bells in her head started ringing.

A memory flashed through her mind. Her fingers touching a turtle, and the turtle deflating so only the skin remained. She'd screamed and thrown herself back, but then, right before she'd hit the ground and woken herself up, she'd seen a boy appear out of nowhere.

Right next to the skin.

"You're a sea turtle," Alya said slowly.

Nino made a face. "Sort of. I mean, I'm a..."

"A selkie."

Nino and Alya both turned to look at Ladybug. The surprise had vanished from her face, but now she looked... Almost angry. "You're a selkie."

It wasn't a question, but Nino nodded anyway.

Ladybug's eyes left his, locking with Alya instead, her next question clearly being addressed only to Alya. "How long have you two known each other?"

Alya made a face. "Uh... Well, I wasn't exactly keeping track of time when that guy was trying to kill us. It was like, half an hour, maybe."

Ladybug's face turned to stone. Her glittering eyes turned cold, and every instinct Alya had screamed at her to run.

She shifted more in front of Nino. "Stay away from him."

Nino put his hand on Alya's shoulder. "It's okay, Alya. She's not going to hurt me."

Alya scowled at him. "What do you mean, she's not going to hurt you? Look at her face!"

Nino glanced at her face and swallowed. "It's a misunderstanding. She thinks I did something bad, but she's not going to hurt me." He looked at Ladybug's eyes. "I didn't do what you think I did."

Ladybug raised her eyebrows. "No? So you told her what taking that jacket would mean before you gave it to her? Even though you've only known her for half an hour and you spent most of that trying not to get killed?"

Alya frowned at the accusation in Ladybug's voice. "Hey, don't get mad at him. All he's done since he's met me is be nice and protect me. He took a hit from dragon flame so I wouldn't!"

Ladybug put her hands on her hips. "That doesn't mean..."

Alya kept talking. "And look, I don't know why me having his jacket is such a big deal, but he didn't give it to me. I took it. Like, he was wearing it, and I took it off him."

Ladybug's jaw dropped. "What? Why?"

Alya shrugged. "I was yelling at him for wearing tortoiseshell glasses, and then he said his jacket was made out of turtle skin, and then I took it off him. He tried to stop me. It wasn't very effective." She looked back at Nino. "Why is it such a big deal, anyway? Is it because of what that Stalker guy was saying? About me having some of your magic."

Nino bit his lip. "Well, you do have some of my magic, and now anyone who wants my magic can't get it unless you die first. So that's not great, but there is something else important that you should know, about having my jacket."

Alya frowned. Nino seemed weirdly nervous. Not terrified, like he was when the Stalker showed up, but distinctly uncomfortable and almost... Embarrassed. "What's that?" She asked suspiciously.

Nino swallowed hard. "Um... According to the customs of... my people, you and I are now kind of... Technically.... Totally married."


	5. The Day Alya Césaire Failed to Divorce a Sea Turtle

Alya's brain stopped working.

She sat there for an indeterminate amount of time, her whole body numb.

And then finally, her brain rebooted again.

Selkie.

Ladybug had called Nino a selkie.

Alya had heard stories about selkies. Seals who turned into humans, and who could be forced to marry someone if that person stole their skin.

And sure, Nino was a sea turtle, and Alya hadn't demanded he marry her, but those were small discrepancies, things that could be explained away by the stories getting muddled over generations of being told.

Which meant that the news that they were now married made a lot of sense to Alya. Compared to everything else that had happened in the last hour, it actually seemed reasonable. Normal.

And that was bad.

Alya didn't want it to make sense, to be reasonable.

She didn't want to be married.

She was fifteen, and she'd only met Nino half an hour ago.

And sure, he was cute, but he wasn't meet-him-and-marry-him-immediately cute.

It finally dawned on her that Nino was watching her, waiting for a reaction. He seemed nervous. Really nervous. She wondered how long he'd been waiting for her to say something.

Alya focused on her mouth, somehow managing to force out a single word.

"What."

It didn't sound like a question. Her voice was too flat.

But that was okay. Alya wasn't sure if she'd even meant it as a question.

Nino flinched. "We're married," he said again, apparently worried that Alya hadn't heard him.

Alya blinked, her mind running over everything that had happened. Everything  Nino had said since she'd met him. Everything the Stalker had said. "Because I took your jacket?"

Nino nodded.

Alya frowned, still deep in thought. "And that means we're married? Is that because taking your skin gives the person your magic? I'm not sure how your magic works, but I'm guessing it's bad to have someone else take half. Or in your case, more than half. The stories about selkies say that they can't turn back into animals and go back to the sea without their skin, but I'd guess that it's not the only effect, and since it's not easy to get your skin back, then..."

She looked over at Nino, who seemed surprised, for some reason. "How do you know all that?"

Alya could barely process what he was saying. Her mind was still racing, but she forced herself to answer. "You told me. When the Stalker said that I had half your magic, you said you gave more than half. Don't you remember?

Nino frowned. "Yeah, but with everything else that was going on, I didn't expect _you_ to remember. What makes you think it's hard to give the skin back?"

Alya frowned. "Isn't it? Earlier, when I tried to give you your jacket back, you said that wasn't how it worked. So if I've got half of your magic and I can't just give it back, and it stops you from going back to the sea... well, then I guess I can see why selkies might consider it a marriage, depending on what else me having some of your magic does."

"That's not bad."

Alya turned her head, startled. She had forgotten Ladybug was here. Actually, she'd forgotten Ladybug existed.

Because she was married.

Ladybug looked at her with a slight smile. "You're picking things up fast."

She glanced down at her yo-yo and smiled wider. "Looks like all the spells the put on the imp  have been cleansed." She tapped the front of the yo-yo with her thumb, and it opened like wings and released the imp she'd captured.

The imp shot into the air, laughing gleefully and shooting off sparks.

"Would you stop it with the fireworks already?" Ladybug sounded annoyed now. "You're going to get caught again. You need to find a cave to hide in before every Stalker in France comes after you."

The imp stopped sparking and zoomed away, still laughing crazily.

Ladybug shook her head. "I'm probably going to have to save that one again. Imps. No self-control." She looked back at Alya. "Kind of like you. Taking someone's jacket just because you don't like what it's made of? Not a good move. He could take his jacket back if he wanted to. Legally, I can't stop him, and then you'd be in trouble. And even if he decided not to take his jacket back, he could still press charges. Taking a selkie's jacket is a pretty big crime. You'd be labeled a Stalker, and since there's no way to prove you didn't know he was a selkie..."

Ladybug's voice trailed off, but Alya got the idea. There'd be no way for her to prove she wasn't a Stalker, so she'd probably end up being treated like one. And since they were apparently down with murder, that sounded pretty bad.

She glanced at Nino. He was squinting at Ladybug. "Are you cray-cray, lady? I'm not going to press charges. She didn't know. And I'm not going to take my jacket back, either. I don't want her to be cursed."

Alya's eyes widened. "What do you mean, cursed?"

Nino looked uncomfortable. He wouldn't meet her eyes. "A long time ago, all selkies came together and created a powerful curse. Anyone who took the skin of a selkie by force or extortion or even trickery would be cursed. When the selkie got their skin back, the person who took it would be transformed into a sea animal. Like, forever."

Alya's jaw dropped. "What? Even if I took on accident and I give it back to you willingly?"

Nino winced, but nodded.

"Why would they do that?" Alya demanded.

She was looking at Nino, but it was Ladybug who answered.

"Because they kept getting kidnapped and used."

Alya turned her head to look at Ladybug.

Ladybug was looking at the ground. Her shoulders sagged like they'd suddenly been asked to carry a hundred pounds. "Stalkers usually keep their knowledge about magical creatures secret, but centuries ago, one learned the selkies' weakness, and he decided to tell everyone. It became very common for selkies to be captured. Female selkies in particular. Some of their captors demanded they marry them, give them kids, without any regard for how the selkie felt about it."

Alya's blood ran cold.

Ladybug closed her eyes. "But others, they figured out that having a selkie's skin allowed them to do a lot more than just force them to stay with them. With their skin, they could force the selkies to use their magic in whatever way their captors saw fit. They could keep their boats from sinking. They could cause storms and force their enemies' boats to sink. And these captors used the skins to force the selkies to fight their wars for them. It was... a really bad situation. Captivity is bad enough for a selkie. Having to fight is much worse. It became almost an epidemic. Selkies stopped going to shore. But denying that part of themselves... It caused its own problems."

She looked away, seeming lost in thought and so, so sad.

Nino cleared his throat and both girls turned to look at him. "Yeah, it was bad. And we can't hurt humans who have a selkie pelt. It would hurt the selkie too. So we made the curse. Cause even though it was pretty easy to take our skin, no one could keep it away from us forever. Sooner or later, we would get it back. And then the oath magical creatures made not to hurt humans no longer applied. We could use magic on them. We didn't want to kill them, so we made it so they'd get a taste of their own medicine. Stick them in a form and make them stay, make them live in a world they didn't understand."

Alya frowned. "Well, considering that they did, I'd say they got what they deserved."

She didn't deserve it, but maybe the curse wasn't complex enough to be able to tell that.

Still. Shouldn't they have done something to give people a way out of the curse? Maybe they hadn't considered someone like her, who'd take a selkie's skin without meaning to, not back during a time when people still believed in them. But they must have considered people like Nino. Selkies so kind they wouldn't take their skin back, not matter what the cost was to themselves, because they didn't want to hurt someone else.

She couldn't just... Be married.

Nino shook his head. "It wasn't about giving them what they deserved. It was about scaring the other humans. Making them realize it was a bad idea to take our skin. And it worked, mostly."

"It worked until people stopped believing in magical creatures, and the only ones preying on selkies were Stalkers," Ladybug said. "Stalkers always think they can beat curses." She flinched then, and held a hand up to her ear, looking away from them, like she wasn't talking to them. "Alright, I'm on it." She looked back at them. "Sorry, I have to go." She looked at Nino. "But first..."

She opened her hand, and red glitter poured out of it. It swarmed Nino, and the whole street. Nino's injuries vanished, and the shattered glass and other damage done to the street disappeared.

Nino smiled weakly at her. "Thanks."

Ladybug shook her head dismissively. "It's my job." Then she frowned, glancing from Nino to Alya and back again. "I know how much stuff you have to talk about. But as soon as you've covered the basics, the two of you should go to headquarters. You need to report your marriage so they know they need to protect her too."

Nino nodded, and Ladybug turned to leave.

Then she paused. "I'm not going to tell you that you have to lie to them. I don't like lying. But if they find out that she took your skin by force, she's going to be in a lot of trouble." She glanced back at them. "So keep that in mind when you decide how much of what happened today you want to tell them."

Her eyes flicked over to Alya's, just for a moment.

And in that moment, Alya realized something.

Ladybug wanted Nino to lie for her. She wanted Alya to stay out of trouble.

She cared.

And it sank in then. Alya had spent her whole life wishing superheroes were real, and now she was meeting one. Someone so powerful, and so selfless she'd risk he life for people she didn't even know, and then still be worried about them after.

Ladybug was everything a superhero should be.

Ladybug threw her yo-yo, yanked hard on the string, and shot into the sky.

Alya stared after her, and then a thought she'd had earlier occurred to her again.

She turned back to look at Nino. "There has to be a way for me to give you your jacket back without getting cursed."

Nino flinched. "Technically, there are two ways for me to get it back without cursing you. Three, if you count dying."

"I don't," Alya said shortly. "What are the two ways?"

Nino grimaced. "I don't think you'll want to use them."

Alya raised her eyebrows at him and waited for him to continue.

Nino sighed. "They're pretty simple. One way is to do this rebirth ceremony thing. You basically just have to give me my jacket back on the beach where I was born, on my birthday."

Alya frowned. "That doesn't seem that hard. Annoying that we have to wait for your birthday, but not that hard. When's your birthday? Please tell me it wasn't yesterday, and we have to be married for a year."

Nino flinched again. "See, that's the problem. The selkies that made these rules were seals, since seals were the ones getting captured almost all of the time. So they made it so that they could be freed on their birthday, because they measure years different than humans do. One year to a human is seven to a selkie, so they get seven chances to be freed without any cursing each year. But sea turtles only age at the rate humans do while we're kids. As adults, we age much slower, so we... Measure years the other way."

It took a moment for Alya to realize what he was saying. "You mean that sea turtle years are longer than human years."

Nino nodded.

Alya's blood froze. "How much?"

Nino looked at the ground. "My birthday isn't for another ten years."

Alya closed her eyes. "Of course it isn't." She opened them again. "What's the other way?"

Nino was silent for a long moment, and when he spoke, he was stuttering, clearly flustered. "The other way for me to get my jacket back without you being cursed is for a kid to give it back to me."

Alya squinted at him. She couldn't imagine why that idea made him so flustered. "Well, that's not hard. We just find a kid, and..."

Nino shook his head. "It can't be a random kid. This rule exists because a lot of kidnapped selkies had kids with their captors. And at the time, society wasn't great at providing for orphans in a lot of places. And once a seal selkie goes back to the sea, they can't return for at least a year, so there had to be a way to let the selkies go free without taking the kids' dad away too. So in order for it to work, the kid would have to be..."

He trailed off, not seeming to be able to finish the sentence.

But Alya had figured out what he was saying. "Our kid. It will only work if the kid was ours."

Nino nodded, looking pretty miserable.

Alya sighed. "That won't work." She frowned. "Where does that leave us? What does it mean, us being married by selkie law? Can we just part ways until our ten years up, or will something bad happen?"

Nino smiled half-heartedly. "Depends. Is me dying and you getting sick bad?"

Alya glared at him. "Yes! That's very bad! Is that what's going to happen?"

Nino nodded. "Yeah. We can't be more than a mile away each other unless one of us is at sea. Otherwise, my magic will withdraw from me, which will kill me, and it'll flood into you. Your body isn't built to withstand that much power, so you'll get really sick, and probably never get better, even if someone manages to take the magic from you. And that's just if you her lucky. If not... You die too." He frowned. "Oh, and I, should mention. There's also a time component. You can go to sea without issues, but if we're both on land, we have to spend more time together then we do apart, or..."

Alya raised her eyebrows at him. "We'll both die."

Nino shook his head. "More likely we'll survive, just slowly go insane."

"Well, that sucks," Alya said.

"It does, but it's not the biggest problem," Nino said.

Alya stared at him. "What do you mean? How can dying of separation not be the biggest problem?"

Nino frowned. "Those are just general selkie rules. Female seal selkies were almost always the ones that got captured. There's a reason for that. Male and female selkies' powers work differently. And each kind of sea animal has different powers as well, so taking their skin has different effects. Female seals are the only ones who ever really got targeted, and that's partly because they're the only ones whose skin can be taken safely."

Alya's eyes narrowed. "Really? That didn't sound safe."

"Ish. Safely-ish." Nino corrected himself. "In comparison."

Alya stared at him for a second. "Hang on. You're saying that me having your skin is more dangerous somehow? Beyond Stalkers trying to kill me to take it? Beyond us dying if we get separated?"

Nino nodded. "Yeah. Because you took my skin, there's going to be a backlash. We'll start sharing memories and emotions and thoughts uncontrollably." He pointed to his jacket. "I'm willing to bet that you already got a piece of my memory, when you put that on. But it's going to get worse. That connection will get stronger and stronger."

Alya frowned. "That doesn't sound that bad."

Nino grimaced. "It means that if I get in too much danger and you're not there, you might start seeing and responding to my surroundings instead of yours. And it's not the only bad thing that might happen. Not to mention accidental thought and emotional sharing. Hope you don't like to keep secrets."

"Oh." Alya thought about that for a moment. "That could get awkward. I guess it's not too good."

Nino shook his head. "Nope. That's why it's not really a good idea to take a male selkie's skin."

It took a second for Alya to register what he was saying. "Wait, that's the effect of you being a male selkie? But you said that taking the skin of someone who wasn't a seal was also bad. What's going to happen to me because you're a sea turtle?"

Nino sighed, and it was like he aged ten years. His shoulders sagged. "You'll get to share my curse."

"All of that sounded like a curse," Alya said. "You're telling me that none of that was a curse? What does the curse do then?"

Nino looked away from her. "I'm a hawksbill sea turtle."

 _Alya_ frowned. "That's the kind tortoiseshell jewelry is made out of." A lightbulb went off in her brain. "That's why your glasses are tortoiseshell, isn't it?"

Nino nodded. He suddenly seemed very tired. "Selkie hawksbills have a... Special magic. We make people want..." He flushed red. "Things from us. Nice people will care about you, want you to be happy. People who are... Less nice, will look at you and feel like they're seeing dollar signs. They'll want you, and they won't know why, but people like that... You'll have a lot more than Stalkers to worry about. And... Even nice people, from here on out, you're not going to know which ones really care about you, and which ones are just responding to your magic."

Alya stared at him for a long moment. She didn't like the sound of that, but... "Yeah, that's not great, but you dying if we get separated is definitely worse."

Nino blinked several times, looking taken aback by that answer. "Oh. Um... I guess. But, having a target on your back..."

Alya pushed herself to her feet. "Yeah, the only people I'm worried about coming after me are the ones who are going to shoot at me with magic arrows. And since I don't want any more of them to show up now, I think we should do what Ladybug said, and head to headquarters."

She held her hand out toward him. He stared up at her for a long moment. Then he took her hand.

Her hand tingled when he touched it. Nothing like earlier, when the feeling of holding his hand had been overwhelming, but still a warm, calm feeling washed over her. Sunshine and waves.

"You know, if you want me to pretend I've known you for longer than a day, you're going to have to tell me what your name is," Nino said with a smile.

That was right. She still hadn't told him. "Oh, my name is Alya."

Nino's eyes widened. He let go of her hand, his whole body going as rigid as a rock.

"Are you o..." Alya started to ask him.

"Alya?" Nino cut her off, his voice sounding strained. "Alya Césaire?"


	6. Alya Césaire and the Day She Found Out about City Hall's Secret Basement

Alya stared at Nino for several seconds.

Then she frowned. "How do you know my last name?"

Nino's eyes widened even more. Like a deer in the headlights. "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh...."

Alya squinted at him. "See, now you've been saying 'uuuhhh' way too long, so even if you do think of an excuse, I'm not going to believe you. Just tell me the truth."

Nino looked sideways with an expression Alya couldn't begin to read. "Like you said. You wouldn't believe me anyway." He pushed himself up to his feet. "We should get going, though. We're sitting ducks right now. We need to get to headquarters and tell them about us so they can assign us a case agent."

He started walking away, leaving Alya no choice but to follow him.

"How did you know my last name?" alya asked him again. "You just met me today? Right?"

Nino didn't answer her.

Around them, the fog thinned and disappeared. Suddenly, they were no longer on an empty street. People were all around them, not seeming to notice Alya's and Nino's reappearence.

Alya wanted to ask how the fog worked, but she wanted to know how he knew her last name even more.

Well, sometimes it was easier to get people to answer a question after they answered an easier one first.

"How do you know where we're going?" Alya asked, making her voice as innocent as possible.

Nino glanced over at her for a second, his eyes narrowing slightly. Then he looked straight ahead. "I registered with Trapper headquarters first thing when I came to Paris. You don't technically have to, but it's easier for them to protect you if you tell them you're going to be around."

Alya nodded. "That makes sense, I guess." She fell silent for a second, but then she couldn't stand it anymore. "How did you know my last name?"

Nino glanced over at her, smiling slightly. "Hoping it'll be easier to get me to get to answer that question now that I've answered different one?"

Alya's eyes went wide. "How did you...?"

Nino looked forward, his smile growing. "That trick's not going to work on me."

Alya scowled, but she really did have too many other questions bothering her to stick too long with that one. "What about the fog? Can you tell me how that works? Where did it come from? Why did all the people disappear?"

Nino's expression grew serious. "It's part of the oath magical creatures made all those years ago. We promised not to use our magic on humans, but we also promised to stay secret. So only people with magic, magical items, or people who know about magic can see magic or magical items being used. Otherwise, as soon as someone starts using magic or magic items, the fog forms, and prevents everyone who doesn't have magic, isn't holding something magic, and doesn't know about magic from seeing it being used. They can't see anyone whose inside the fog, and they can't see what they're doing."

Alya frowned. "So all those people in the cafe saw us just disappear? What if they call the police? And why didn't anyone notice us coming out of the fog?"

Nino shook his head. "They're not going to call the police. As soon as the fog forms, it makes everyone who saw you disappear forget that you were there. And when it fades, it prevents anyone who doesn't have magic from noticing you appearing."

The wheels in Alya's brain spun at crazy speeds. "That sounds like really powerful magic."

Nino grinned. "Yeah. Now _that_ is genie magic."

"That's right," Alya remembered. "When Ladybug was trying to figure out how that guy disappeared, you said you knew it wasn't genie magic because you'd met a genie before."

Nino nodded. "Yeah, that's a long story. I'll have to tell it to you sometime."

Something flickered in his eyes then, something Alya knew she recognized but couldn't quite place. Sadness, maybe? Frustration? Longing? Maybe some mix of the three?

But whatever the emotion in Nino's eyes was, he just kept walking.

Alya brushed aside her curiousity about the genie story in favor of another question. "So where is Trapper Headquarters?"

"Underneath City Hall," Nino said.

"Underneath?" Alya asked, frowning. "You mean like some kind of secret underground basement?"

Nino made a face. "Sort of," he said, but the way he said was uncertain, like that wasn't it at all and he just couldn't think of a better explanation.

Alya raised her eyebrows at him, which didn't matter much as he wasn't actually looking at her. "How can something sort of be a basement?"

"Well, it's not necessarily underneath so much as it is behind. Sort of behind? It's like city hall and then fog and the headquarters for the Trappers," Nino said, stacking his hands on top of each other. "Does that make sense?"

"No," Alya said. "How did you know my last name?"

Nino glanced over at her. "Lucky guess."

"I don't believe you," Alya told him.

Nino shrugged. "I told you that you wouldn't."

Alya scowled. "What's the big deal with telling me the truth?"

Nino didn't answer her.

After a while, Alya accepted that he wasn't going to tell her anything and changed the subject. "So... Trappers. You said we're going to their headquarters, and that guy called Ladybug one, but what exactly is a Trapper? Some kind of protector of mythical creatures?"

"Ish," Nino said. "Anyone can protect mythical beings. Humans, non-humans. It doesn't  matter. The general term for someone who protects magical beings is a Mythos Officer. Trapper is slang, referring to someone who has both human and mythical being ancestors. As a result, they have some of the abilities of the mythical creatures in their past, and they can use magic on humans. They're not any good to Stalkers because they're part human, but they can often fake being a regular mythical creature and lure the Stalkers in."

Alya thought about that for a second. "Like a trap."

Nino nodded. "That's why we call them Trappers."

Alya frowned. "That makes sense, I guess. Is that how Ladybug transformed like that? She's part magical creature?"

Nino noddexd again. "Part pixie, I'd guess. Her transformation was bug-like and she clearly had super strength, so she had to be either a pixie or a sprite. But she didn't seem like a sprite."

Alya stared at him, only sort of watching where she was going. "Hang on. Ladybug seemed really powerful, and now you're telling me she's a pixie? Like a little fairy?"

Nino made a face. "Fairies and pixies are cousins, but pixies are a lot more dangerous. They're capable of changing their size, mending anything that's broken or anyone that's injured, and making anything they touch invincible. And they have super strength. They're also capable of freeing any beings trapped by a spell, though they can't undo any other kind of spell. Some of these abilities they share with sprites."

"But you're sure she's not a sprite?" Alya asked.

Nino nodded. "Pixies and sprites have distinctive personalities. And even if they have a kid with a human, the kid gets those traits. Sprites think they're better anyone. They firmly believe that sprites are superior to all other life forms, and they think they're better than all sprites but the queen. It would be incredibly rare for a sprite to protect someone who wasn't a member of their species. Ladybug didn't seem like that to me."

"Okay," Alya said, soaking that in. He was right. Ladybug had seemed like she cared too much about other people for that. "What are pixies like?"

"Mischevious, mostly," Nino said. "They have the powers to be dangerous, but their personalities make them more inclined to steal stuff and pull pranks."

Alya frowned. "Ladybug didn't seem like a prankster." Then she thought about her entrance, about her smile, about the way she had pretended the Stalker had caught her. "Mm. Actually, that might be right."

Nino smiled at her change of opinion, but didn't say anything. He did seem like he wasn't one to talk too much unless pressed.

Alya's mind churned busily, thinking about everything that had happened to her.

And more importantly, trying to figure out how Nino had known her last name.

She was so busy thinking, in fact, that she didn't even notice how close they were getting to city hall until Nino stopped walking.

She stopped too. She was about to ask him why he had stopped, but then she noticed city hall in front of them.

Nino turned to her and grinned. "You ready for this?"

"Ready for...?" Alya to ask.

But then Nino stepped forward, toward city hall, and city hall turned into smoke and evaporated.

Alya's jaw dropped as a different building appeared from behind or underneath City Hall.

No wonder Nino had had trouble describing it to her.

The building that had emerged looked nothing like City Hall. It looked more like a castle.

Except that it seemed to be made of glass.

And it was floating several feet above the ground.

Many ropes went from the castle to the ground, like they were keeping it from floating away. Steps made of class extended several feet below the castle, ending maybe an inch above the ground.

Nino looked back at her and smiled. "What do you think?"

"It's beautiful," Alya said, completely honestly.

Nino nodded. "Yeah. Now let's go report our marriage. And try not to get you arrested."

"Yeah, that would be my preference," Alya said. She stepped forward, next to Nino.

He studied her for a second. Then he reached out and touched his jacket.

Instantly, it morphed, turning into an adorable red coat that fit her a lot better than the green jacket had.

Alya jumped in surprise and stared down at the jacket. "It's not green anymore. I didn't realize it could change colors."

"It can't when I'm wearing it," Nino said. "But if we're going to pretend that I gave you my coat on purpose, it's better if it matches you."

Alya nodded. Nino started to walk towards the castle, and Alya fell into step beside him. "They're not going to ask me a bunch of questions about you to take sure I really know you, are they?"

Nino shrugged. "I have no idea."

"Great," Alya said dryly. "That makes me feel better."

She hesitated a little when she got to the step that didn't quite touch the ground, but then she stepped up and followed Nino inside.

Inside, the castle was bustling with activity. And not just human activity, either. People of all shapes and sizes and colors (and not just normal human colors. Some of them had purple or green or even hot pink skin) were moving back and forth across the hallways. The hallway ceiling was easily twenty times taller than Alya was, which was good, because some of the people were twenty feet tall, and some of the people were flying.

And of course, some of the people weren't people at all, but rather animal in shape. As Alya watched, a black cat with green eyes stopped walking to examine her with eyes that seemed to be piercing her soul.

Nino took her hand, and Alya's skin tingled. "Come on," he said, pulling her gently in one direction.

Alya tore her eyes away from the cat and followed him. He took her past several rooms, all with different titles, finally stopping in front of one labelled Registration.

He pushed the door open and led her inside.

There was a line of several people who looked varying degrees of human.

Nino stood in line behind them, and they waited for their turn.

Finally, someone called them up, and they moved to stand at her window.

The woman sitting in front of them had red hair twisted up in a bun and vivid blue eyes. She wore a red business suit, had red lips, and red nails with black polka dots.

She frowned at her computer, not seeming to notice their presence even though she'd called them over. She clicked on something, then raised her hand to her ear. "Yeah, I got them. But are you sure about this?"

She was silent for a minute, tilting her head like she was listening. "Okay. I trust you."

She looked up and smiled at them. "So. You're Alya and Nino. Ladybug told me you were coming."

She stood up. "If you don't mind, I think this conversation would go a lot better in private."

She looked at them like she was waiting for a response.

Alya nodded. "Yeah, that's okay." She glanced down at the nametag on the woman's lapel. "Tikki."

She glanced up again, and Tikki smiled, red lips pulling back to reveal a mouth full of pointed teeth.


End file.
